


Friendly Hauntings

by moonix



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Festive Bastion Gift Exchange, Ghosts, Luvander is a precious plum, M/M, Questionable taste in books, Raphael has a bookshop, Spectral dick jokes, Tea-related hauntings, post-steelhands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 03:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13158624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: Raphael supposes there are worse things than thinking one is being haunted by the ghost of a former comrade. Who, by all purposes and intents, merely seems to want Luvander to get laid, which Raphael thinks is a fair point.





	Friendly Hauntings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luvanderwon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvanderwon/gifts).



> For my best girl who wanted "Ghost airmen haunting the pants off the surviving six for comedy gold" for the Festive Bastion Exchange! Love you more than tea xxx
> 
> I borrowed capncrystal's idea of Raphael having a bookshop next to Luvander's hat shop post Steelhands... sorryyyyy not sorry.

The bell above the door titters in outrage as Luvander comes barging into the shop for the third time that day. He is in a state: waistcoat buttoned up wrong, hair sticking up behind his left ear, measuring tape still slung over his neck and several hat pins in one hand that he nearly takes someone's eye out with when he gestures.

“Raphael!” he pants, white as a sheet. “It happened again!”

“Oh joy,” Raphael mutters under his breath. He pinches two fingers at his temple before he carefully climbs down the ladder and leads Luvander behind the counter. Thus tucked away from nosy customers, Raphael guides him into the three-legged stool and wraps his spindly fingers around the mug of tea that he originally made for himself.

“Deep breaths,” he murmurs, patting Luvander's knee as it bounces violently. Luvander slurps down half of the tea and spills the rest on his waistcoat with how badly his hands are shaking. Raphael pats him dry with the stray cardigan that resides behind the counter – the one that used to belong to Ivory, but he's not going there today – and takes the mug away from him again before he breaks it.

“It was on the mirror this time,” Luvander whines. “And very crude, may I add. I am upset.”

“You, upset by crudity?” Raphael asks with a smile creasing the corner of his mouth like a dog-ear. “You must be getting old.”

The accusation has the desired effect – Luvander gasps, clutches at his chest and then swats at him, and Raphael laughs and drapes the cardigan over the crowded shelf behind him. He spots an open package of chocolate biscuits peeking out under a pile of paperwork and tugs them out, offering them to Luvander.

“What was it this time? Another drawing of a penis entering a-”

“ _No_ ,” Luvander hisses, “I shan't repeat it, it was just too naughty.”

“Naughtier than a penis-”

“Yes! Now will you close your gossipy wordhole and show some sympathy! I am quite shaken, you know!”

He sniffs, shifting around on the stool until he finds a more comfortable position, and nibbles on his biscuit. Thin winter sunlight makes pirouettes in his hair, highlighting the grey strands in it, and Raphael wonders if this is it, if his friend has finally lost his remaining marbles. If so, he supposes there are worse things than thinking one is being haunted by the ghost of a former comrade. Who, by all purposes and intents, merely seems to want Luvander to get laid, which Raphael thinks is a fair point – it has been thirteen months and nine days since the last time Luvander went home with someone. Raphael knows because the someone happened to be him. Not that he thinks _he_ would be a suitable candidate again, but the point still stands.

Rather than draw Luvander's ire by saying this out loud, Raphael fusses with the kettle and prepares two fresh mugs in the tiny kitchenette behind the counter, as always passing over the tin of green tea that he keeps out of a misplaced sense of nostalgia and going for a soothing spice blend instead.

“Well?” Luvander snaps as Raphael hands over one of the mugs. “Don't you want to know what the message was?”

“You just told me off for asking!” Raphael huffs. A shy 'Versity student comes up to the counter to pay for his books and Raphael quickly plasters a smile on his face and rings him up, probably forgetting to charge him for the little poetry book tucked in with the textbooks. Luvander watches him darkly, eating the last chocolate biscuit, and Raphael perches carefully on the edge of an overspilling filing cabinet.

“Alright, then. Tell me.”

“I can't,” Luvander says immediately. “It was too scandalous.”

“Then write it down for me,” Raphael offers, pushing some paper and a pen at him. Luvander eyes them suspiciously and flicks his hand as if to banish them from his personal space.

“You know my handwriting is no good,” he sighs, which is code for 'you know I can barely read, let alone write, and make my shop girl do all the accounting because I'm too damn proud to let you teach me'. Raphael sighs.

“You know, usually when a ghost sends you a message, there's something they want... some unfinished business, perhaps, or a – a regret, or a wish. Maybe if you can figure out what it is that Niall wants from you, he can, you know. Find peace. Or I could lend you another book on ghosts-”

“That won't be necessary,” Luvander assures him quickly. “I know what kind of ghost books you have lying around. Holly got her hands on the last one you gave me and she said it was simply outrageous.”

There is a light blush dusting his fine cheekbones, which means that Holly probably read her favourite passages out loud to him, and Raphael is pretty sure that the book in question hasn't been returned to him yet. In another time Luvander would have been only too happy to join in with the other boys' teasing about Raphael's frivolous taste in books, but today his brow is furrowed and he sucks his lower lip between his teeth with a fretful hum.

“Ghislain sent another letter,” he says abruptly, fingering the outline of what is most likely said letter in his pocket.

“How nice,” Raphael says. He knows that Luvander wants to ask him to read it out for him just as much as he wants to keep it to himself. Raphael has caught him many times, hunched over the latest letter in his shop, mouthing the words to himself as he labours to decipher them. He wonders if the ghost of Niall, always the better reader out of the two of them, had read it sneakily over his shoulder as he would have in real life, and is using it to tease Luvander through the medium of spectral dick jokes.

“Those masks he brought me last time are utterly useless,” Luvander huffs now and drums his fingers on the counter. “They were supposed to keep malignant spirits _out_ , now they've gone and invited one _in_.”

“I wouldn't go so far as to call Niall a malignant spirit...”

“He once went to the trouble of drawing a different pair of breasts on every single page of your favourite roman,” Luvander charitably reminds him. “If I recall correctly, one of them had three nipples, and the last page held a _very_ detailed sketch of an old man's anus.”

“Well,” Raphael says weakly, spreading his hands and shuddering at the memory. “Yes. He did that.”

Luvander squints at him. “Do you have any books on how to expel an unwanted supernatural tenant from one's house?”

“Oh,” Raphael says. “No, I'm afraid not. Most of the literature on ghosts I have is, uhm... rather focused on the opposite. That is, inviting them into your... well, house, as it were.”

Something makes a rattly noise behind him and he twists around, frowning at the tea tins. They look the same as always, chipped and dented and stacked two deep on the shelf above the small sink, but just as he is about to turn back, he notices a single green tea leaf that has fallen into the sink.

Huh.

It has been a while since he last opened that tin.

“Peculiar,” he says, and rinses the leaf away.

“I don't want to invite Niall into my... house,” Luvander complains. “I want him _out_. His presence is very unnerving and I'm scared what potential guests might say if they found one of his messages before I have a chance to erase it.”

“Potential guests,” Raphael echoes, amused. “I see.”

The only people who come to visit Luvander these days are Raphael, when they're playing cards with Adamo and Raphael stays over because he's had a little too much wine, or, well.

Ghislain whenever he stops by on his travels.

He is about to point this out when Luvander suddenly makes a sound that is like the love child of a hiccup and a sob and buries his face in his hands.

“I-I-I miss him, Raphael, I miss him so much,” he keens, high and thin and miserable, and Raphael's heart, which is a puzzle held together with glue these days, tatters and frays in his chest.

“I know,” he murmurs clumsily, reaching out to stroke Luvander's head. “I miss him too. All of them. If it helps, I'm sure that's why he's haunting you...”

“Oh, not Niall!” Luvander snaps irritably, shaking off his hand. “I meant... never mind. I should get back to the shop, Holly might need my help... Fine then, give me your naughty ghost book, maybe there's something useful to be found in it after all, go on, I know you insist...”

Bemused and a little shaken, Raphael grabs the book for him and a handkerchief so he can dry his face before stepping outside. Luvander clears his throat a few times and tucks the book close so the title is obscured by his waistcoat.

“He's coming to town soon, isn't he?” Raphael asks casually. “Ghislain?”

“Oh,” Luvander says, “yes. Next week, in fact. We should all go out, for old times' sake, what do you say?”

“Sounds great. You can get him drunk and then you can take him home and climb him like the Cobalts. Get yourself laid and rid the house of your malignant spirit. Two birds, one stone, as they say – or ghosts, in this case.”

Luvander looks stricken for a moment. He rallies quickly, mutters a sullen, “Ha ha, very funny,” and leaves the shop in a hurry with his specterotica (Raphael is rather proud of himself for coming up with that genre name) clutched to his chest.

He really is going a bit mad in his old days, Raphael thinks fondly and sinks down onto his stool. He sells a few more books, makes another cup of tea that he then forgets to drink, gets into a long-winded discussion about Tycho The Brave with a customer and comes back to the counter to find that his tea tins have been rearranged by some prankster. At least nothing is missing from the till this time.

He turns around, patting himself down for a pen so he can fill out some order forms and remembers that he gave it to Luvander earlier. It's still lying on top of the paper he pushed at him, though the cap is off for some reason, and Raphael leans over to grab it with a frown and sees that someone has written something on the top sheet of paper in very familiar, slanting handwriting.

_What was that about inviting ghosts into your house?_

A green tea leaf lies underneath like a signature, and Ivory's old cardigan is gone from the shelf.

 


End file.
